________  ________  ________   
   2022-09-05                                   /        \/        \/    /   \  
                                               /       __/         /_       _/ 
   I'm on holiday  and having  a really wild  /        _/         /         / 
time, it's been an interesting  trip and our  \_______/_\___/____/\___/____/_
first  with our daughter  TDK, but  for  the    /        \/        \/    /   \
last couple  days my eyes have been glued to   /        _/         /_       _/
my phone and it's been pretty shitty news.    /-        /        _/         /
                                              \________/\________/\___/____/
   A war between two ideologies is raging on
the Internet, it's been  going for some time but has recently  escalated again
and this time it's  especially  violent. I know I  shouldn't watch but I can't
look away.

   I don't say it lightly when I say the Internet is my home. when I was young
I never  fit in, I  was always  different from  the people  around  me, barely
connected  with the kids I grew up with, had no father figures,  and it wasn't
until I found places  online that I filled  those gaps in my life.  I found my
friends, my wife, I had access to things that engaged and excited me and I
found people to guide me to be a better person.

   This is why I  love  the Internet  so much and this  is why I  believe  the
Internet needs to be protected.

   Yesterday I deleted my hackers.town account - I removed myself from a place
that I  genuinely  loved  because  it was the only voice  I had loud enough to
express the hurt I felt.  Some people will say I "took my ball and went home",
maybe I did, but to me I sat in the streets of New Cyberia and self-immolated.
I burned while the people around me cavorted  and capered in celebration  of a
victory as hollow and gaudy as a Dollar Store Christmas ornament.

   There is a wound in the Internet  and two tribes  hack at it in the name of
their  kings  and their  gods and their beliefs and it  makes  me sick  to  my
stomach, levelling the ugliest,  meanest  tactics  at each other  based on the
flimsiest shittiest intel.

   B4UDW3RK5  utterly  disavows  anyone  who  would  choose  escalation   over
discussion, B4UDW3RK5  utterly disavows anyone who would choose hostility over
treaty and B4UDW3RK5 utterly disavows anyone who would jeopardize the Internet
for  the  sake  of  corporate  profit,  histrionic  weirdos  or  mean-spirited
cyberbullies.

   B4UDW3RK5  will  welcome  any  refugees  from  this  hateful  exchange  but
B4UDW3RK5 will not let their war cross our borders.

WOPR was right.



EOF